Strap in, folks! We're diving into a whole new way of connecting online. While I might not have a fancy Table of Contents for you, here's a sneak peek of what this article covers:
What is Nostr?
What is an Event?
What is a Nostr Relay?
What is a NIP?
What is Nostr?
Nostr is a social media protocol aimed at swifter data handling and promoting decentralized identity. It relies on cryptographic keys, requiring only a public and private key for access. This architecture allows developers to create decentralized networks, making Nostr a valuable tool.
Each Nostr account uses a pair of keys: a public key (prefixed with npub1) as the username and a private key (prefixed with nsec1) as the password. Unlike regular passwords, private keys cannot be reset if lost, so it’s essential to store them securely, such as in a password manager.
Key Components of Nostr
Nostr operates through three main components: profiles, clients, and relays. Each plays a crucial role in the ecosystem, enabling seamless communication and data management.
Profiles: Your profile on Nostr is like your personal account, where all your notes and information are stored. It’s identified by a public key, which functions as your username.
Clients: The client is the application you use to interact with Nostr. It helps you create, encode, and view notes, as well as manage your profile. There are various clients available, each offering unique features and interfaces.
Relays: Relays are the backbone of the Nostr network. They transmit notes and other data from senders to receivers, ensuring your messages reach their intended destinations without relying on a central server.
How to Use Nostr
Getting started with Nostr is straightforward. Here’s a quick guide:
Generate Keys: Create a pair of public and private keys. This can be done through various Nostr clients or cryptographic tools.
Choose a Client: Select a Nostr client that suits your needs. Some popular options include Primal, NostrChat, and Nostter.
Set Up Your Profile: Use your public key to set up your profile on the chosen client. Ensure you store your private key in a secure place, such as a password manager.
Connect and Share: Start creating and sharing notes. Use the client to view others’ notes and interact with the network.
I recommend using Primal as a client. Clients can fetch data from relays and also generate new data and push that to relays so others can read.
The best client in the market for testing a relay or connecting to other relay I find Primal a nostr client very useful and helpful.
Any client you sign up for you need to save this data
What is an event?
A Nostr event is a fundamental unit of communication within the Nostr protocol, encapsulating various types of information such as messages, updates, or interactions. It consists of components like an event ID, public key, content, timestamp, and a cryptographic signature.
Nostr's event format allows for diverse content types, including social media posts, long-form content, rich media, and ecommerce. Each note is verifiable, ensuring it originates from a specific user, which helps combat spam and bot activity. Users can connect to multiple relays and even run their own, making censorship of ideas and individuals challenging.
Example: A user posts a text message on Nostr, sharing their thoughts on a recent news article. This message becomes a Nostr event, containing the user's public key, the text of their message, a timestamp indicating when it was posted, and a signature verifying its authenticity.
{
"event_id": "0xabc123def456",
"public_key": "npub1abcxyz789",
"content": "Excited to join the Nostr community!",
"timestamp": "June 9, 2024 10:00 AM",
"signature": "0xdef789ghi123jkl456mno"
}
What is a Nostr Relay?
The relays in the Nostr network act like the backend technical support infrastructure, functioning almost the same way servers would act in normal systems. These are intermediaries and keepers of messages from Nostr clients. To get a clear picture of what they do, whenever a client sends a message to another, they also send a copy through the relay node. In other words, at the heart of it is the ability to preserve the connection quality for smooth communication among all real users that is why they are called decentralization systems.
Currently, there are a lot of free relays that are available for use. In future, the general feeling is that paid relays will be the trend because of reasons such as computation costs, storage and bandwidth that relay running involve. Currently, one big advantage to using paid relays is the increased signal over users and notes on paid relays. Keeping spam accounts off the network is possible in part due to “proof of work” of paying for relay access.
Relays of every kind are available at:
What is a NIP?
NIP in a Nostr relay stands for "Nostr Interchange Protocol." It describes a standardized way of communicating events (messages, updates, etc.) between relays and clients in the Nostr network. In other words, NIP sets a format and rules for exchanging information between participating relays and clients in the Nostr ecosystem. This promotes interoperability and backwards compatibility between elements of the network. On a practical level, NIP allows relays to process in events coming and going from the decentralized network.
You can find all the NIP's in this repository:
nostr-protocol/nips: Nostr Implementation Possibilities (github.com)
These concepts are enough to get started with Nostr.
